In Brief: Praxis teams up with Grimes; Neotherix appoints; PKF fraud warning; Addleshaw Goddard advises Aviva
WEBSITE services company Praxis Applications has signed a contract with Apprentice finalist Kristina Grimes’ latest venture, Camino, to create an online information library.
Camino is being run by Ms Grimes and business partner Richard Norman and aims to develop enterprise in schools across the UK, advising teachers and students on starting and developing businesses and offering help and support.
Camino has commissioned Leeds-based Praxis Applications to create and intranet and online information library to provide teachers with a range of support materials to support their training.
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REGENERATIVE medicine company Neotherix has expanded its team by recruiting Italian scientist Dr Lorenzo Pio Serino.
Dr Serino, from Florence, has joined the York-based company to work on its RegeniTherix project which has been funded by the UK Technology Strategy Board.
The project will develop ‘smart dressings’ – otherwise known as tissue scaffolds – for healing wounds while still allowing samples to be taken to test for gene markers.
The markers will provide information on whether a wound is likely to heal without complications or whether doctors will need to use specialist treatments.
Neotherix started in 2007 as a spin-out from Smith & Nephew and develops scaffolds for the repair and regeneration of tissues affected by surgery, disease or infection.
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A FORENSIC accountant has issued a warning to the region’s businesses that they can expect to suffer “a huge increase in fraud involving employees” during the rest of 2009.
James Hamilton, forensic accounting director, based at the Leeds office of accountants and business advisers PKF, said the prediction was because history showed that as corporate growth and output fell in an economic downturn, fraud inevitably rose.
Mr Hamilton said all types and sizes of business were likely to be affected.
He said: “According to CIFAS, the UK’s fraud prevention service, the number of identified fraud cases overall has been rising sharply in recent years, from just over 104,000 in 1997 to almost 356,000 in 2005. That’s an increase of more than 240% in nine years.
“However, within this context, frauds perpetrated by employees, sometimes in collusion with outside individuals, have grown massively.
These are now believed to account for around a fifth of all cases and I foresee current economic conditions meaning this trend will accelerate even faster.”
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LAW firm Addleshaw Goddard in Leeds has advised Aviva on the sale of driving school, the British School of Motoring (BSM), to Arques Industries AG.
The deal, led by Neil Woolhouse with associates Dahren Naidoo and Sonia Marrow, completed a series of deals that Addleshaw Goddard has advised Aviva on in the last three months.
Mr Woolhouse said: “The sale of BSM is part of Aviva’s on-going programme to transform their UK general insurance business through an increased focus on core insurance and vehicle breakdown activities.”
Aviva acquired BSM – which operates a franchised network of around 2,700 driving instructors – as part of the purchase of RAC plc in 2005.
